March 3, 2010

You may have heard that upstate New York Congressman Eric Massa is retiring, and if you did, you also heard it’s allegedly because he was sexually harassing a male House staffer. At his press conference, Massa “admitted to using salty language when he got angry,” reports the Rochester City Newspaper, “and apologized for saying things that might have been inappropriate,” but claims he’s leaving because of his health.

“I run at about 100 miles an hour,” said Massa, “and my doctors have made it clear I can no longer do that.” Massa had been treated for and reportedly cleared of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, his third bout with cancer.

Massa was elected in a squeaker in 2008 and his best-known achievement is probably the Time Warner tiered Internet pricing plan he helped to kill. He served in the Navy for 24 years, and was later a Republican staffer on the House Armed Services Committee, eventually leaving the committee and the Republican Party over the Iraq War.

Massa calls the allegations of impropriety “unsubstantiated and without fact” and “a symptom of what is wrong in [Washington].”